Therapeutic tablet



Patented Apr. 15, 1930 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE ELMIER IB. VLIET, OF CHICAGO, AND ERNEST H. VOLWILER, OF HIGHLAND PARK, ILLI- NOIS, ASSIGNORS TO ABBOTT LABORATORIES, OF NORTH CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, A.

CORPORATION OF ILLINOIS THERAPEUTIC TABLET No Drawing.

In the case of certain medicaments in tablet form, for example chloramine, the active material. is incompatible with many of the common diluents, such as boric acid. sugars. etc; many of the other diluents With which the active material is compatible give granulations that are difiicult to compress into satisfactory tablets. When low pressure is used with such granulations, so as to give a readily soluble tablet, the material tends to stick to the punches in the machine and give imperfect tablets. If enough pressure is used to prevent sticking, the tablets are too hard to dissolve readily. The common lubricants that are used to prevent sticking cannot be used with materials such as chloramine. Talc and paraflin oil give turbid solutions, while boric acid is incompatible.

In order to be satisfactory, the filler or diluent should possess the following properties:

1. It must be stable under the conditions to which the finished tablet is to be exposed.

2. It must be compatible with the active content of the tablet.

3. It must be readily soluble in water, yielding a clear solution.

4. It must not interfere with the desired therapeutic action of the active material in the tablet.

5. It must give a granulation that can be compressed under low pressure and give perfect tablets, free from all evidences of sticking. In other words, it should be a lubricant as well as a diluent.

We have now found that so long as a salt or other substance to be used as a diluent in the tablet is sufficiently soluble in water, the degree of solubility is not important, as it is more than counter-balanced by other factors, such as the minimum amount of compression required to make a satisfactory tablet; in other words, the extremely soluble salts or other substances are not necessarily the best diluents to be used in the tablet manufacture.

We have discovered that, in contrast to practically all the other available salts which might be used for the purpose, potassium nitrate is admirably suited as a diluent in making compressed tablets of such medicaments.

Application filed October 18, 1926. Serial No. 142,518.

While it is not itself extraordinarily soluble that readily dissolve when placed in water. i

In the application of our invention, we have been able to produce a desirable tablet by using potassium nitrate in an amount erpiivalent to 10 to 20% of the total weight 0 the dry granulation. This amount may be varied within wide limits, however, as quantities both greater or less than that above specified have been found to give satisfactory tablets. The potassium nitrate and powdered medicament may be intimately mixed. and enough water added as an excipientto bring the mixture to the proper consistency, whereupon it is granulated according to the usual procedure.

The tablets produced by the above invention are white, stable, and readily soluble in water. When dropped into water, they rapidly dissolve, so that solutions therefrom are readily prepared.

The invention is also particularly applicable to the making of tablets of procaine and neutral aeriflavine.

We claim as our invention:

1. As a new article of manufacture, a therapeutic tablet of chloramine containing the nitrate of an alkali metal as a filler or diluent.

2. As a new article of manufacture, a tablet of chloramine containing potassium nitrate as a filler or diluent.

3. As a new article of manufacture, a therapeutic tablet containing chloramine as the active material and from 10 to 20% of potassium nitrate as a filler or diluent.

ELMER B. VLIET. ERNEST H. VOLWILER. 

